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Downsizing Blog

According to opinion polls, Americans think the federal government is too big and too powerful. On average, people think that more than half of the tax dollars sent to Washington are wasted. When Gallup asked people what the most important problem facing the nation was, more people identified “government” than any other concern, including the economy, immigration, health care, and terrorism.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee launched his presidential campaign last week. Huckabee highlighted his fiscal successes as governor during his announcement. He claims that he cut taxes 94 times while governor, and he promised to bring his tax-cutting experience to Washington, D.C. Huckabee’s statements do not tell the full story. While Huckabee cut some taxes, his time in office also included a rapid increase in Arkansas state spending and multiple tax hikes.

The federal government operates the air traffic control (ATC) system as an old-fashioned bureaucracy, even though ATC is a high-tech business. It’s as if the government took over Apple Computer and tried to design breakthrough products. The government would surely screw it up, which is the situation today with ATC run by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

While the Obama administration has focused on tax increases over the years, Canada has focused on tax cuts. The new Canadian budget, out a couple weeks ago, summarized some of the progress that they have made.

Negotiators for the House of Representatives and the Senate are expected to announce a deal on the budget resolution as early as today. A budget resolution sets overall spending limits for the year. If it passes, it would be the first resolution in six years, but it does little to fix the country’s long-term fiscal mess.

Since treaties in the 19th century, the federal government has provided educational aid to American Indians. These days, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) owns about 180 Indian schools, which have about 41,000 students in Arizona, New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota, and other states.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is readying himself for a White House run. His recent rhetoric on economics shows that he will run to the left of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. After two terms of an unpopular left-wing president, that is surely the last thing the country needs.

A Wall Street Journal story today looks at government spending through the lens of the national income and product accounts (NIPA). The article says that as government spending rises, it is “no longer dragging on growth.” Unlike recent years when spending was supposedly cut, the government today “has ceased to be a drag on growth.” But that is an unwarranted conclusion from the NIPA data, which are produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) releases an annual report on government duplication, fragmentation, and overlap. Since 2011 GAO has highlighted 440 different actions that Congress and the president could take to reduce this wasteful spending. This week, GAO released its updated report and included an additional 66 actions.